Accredited Conferences

This conference focused on reducing inpatient falls, implementing the recommendations from the 2015 National Audit of Inpatient Falls. Through national updates and practical case studies focusing on the individual recommendations from the national audit the conference provided a step by step guide to implementing the multiple interventions that have been proven to reduce falls in your service.

Dr Wallace Tan Chair Falls Group Consultant Geriatrician Croydon University Hospital NHS Trust opened the day with a presentation on Reducing falls and harm from inpatient falls in practice and discussed:

developing a multifaceted approach to reducing inpatient falls

reviewing and improving multifactorial risk assessment and management across the Trust

the development of falls prevention teams and falls champions across the trust

improving the dissemination of learning from falls root cause analysis

our experience and the impact on falls and harm from falls

Dr Tan shared experiences from his organisation of hospital prevention of falls working with a multiprofessional team to reduce falls by 25%. They placed an emphasis on harm free care and promoting overall safety. They started by collating true data to understand the full picture of where and when people are falling i.e. times patients are getting up at night to use the toilet and how to prevent falls by the bed. Full mandatory training was given to all clinical staff working in the the trust including medical doctors, regisered nurses, healthcare assistants and therapists. The Trust did manage to reach their target but over 3 years reducing falls by 30%. Recent root cause analysis showed no case indentified related to lack of care but areas to learn from and improve such as dementia care plans not integrated to the falls care plan and serious injuries more likely in the first fall in the ward. In summary Dr Tan said it is important to; understand the local demographics, choose the right patients with the patient centred care, analysis of local data, think training/equipment, be realistic in setting targets, shared learning from root cause analysis investigations.

Dr Shelagh O’Riordan Falls Clinical Lead National Audit of Inpatient Falls 2015 Consultant Geriatrician East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust followed with a presentation on Learning from the National Audit of Inpatient Falls and discussed:

learning from the national audit of inpatient falls

recommendations for reducing inpatient falls

an update from the falls and fragility audit programme

monitoring progress in falls reduction

current developments

Shelagh talked about the current evidence base for falls prevention using case based examples and how it's necessary to focus on what is known to work to reduce falls. She provided an update on the recent NICE Clinical Standards published in April 2015 including the key recommendation not to use a fall risk prediction tool.

She also gave an update of the recent falls prevention in hospital audit, and mentioned a pilot for vision assessment on the wards looking at whether vision will put patients at risk of falls and whether anything remedial can be done.